Background of the Study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Teaching English as a foreign language in senior high school is aimed at providing the competence of the students to achieve communicative competence of English skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Senior high school curriculum sees English as a means of communication orally and in written form. Mulyono 2008:2 states that “communication is regarded to understand and express information, thought, and feeling and to develop sciences”. This means that integrated English communication is expected to exhibit students’ competence to discourse which covers the ability to understand and produce particular oral and written text. In addition, the teaching and learning English at senior high school is expected to achieve informational function stage. This is intended to prepare them for the advance level of education at university. Informational stage within English language competence draws condition in which people have ability to access sciences by devising fully their competence in language they have learn. In teaching learning process the teacher based on the 2006 curriculum that known as Competence Based curriculum or genre-based approach. The curriculum is known as Competence Based Curriculum or 2006 Curriculum which recommended a new approach that is Genre-based Approach. 2 The teaching of English has adapted to the curriculum which has big proportion of school schedule given to the teaching and learning such this language has been regarded to enable students to have competence in English skills. In teaching and learning English the teachers’ task is to help the students achieve the communicative competence where the teachers are required to have professional competence in order to be able to teach English well. Teaching English puts genre as the main device in language learning. The arrangement of curriculum is based on the genre. According to Hyland: 2004 Genre in classroom practice recognizes that the features of similar group of text depend on the social context in which the text is created and used. In the curriculum 2006, there are thirteen kinds of genre namely: narrative, anecdote, spoof, recount, news item, descriptive, report, procedure, explanation, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition, discussion, and review. Determining the types of genre helps the students organizing information in paragraph used for communicative purpose. It is expected to develop communicative competence and make students able to make rational English text. The 2006 English curriculum of PP No 19, 2006 formulates the standard competence of education about the development in communicating in oral and written to get informational letter. Genre-based Approach is teaching language based on the results of genre production, the study of how language is used within a particular setting Swalles 1990 and is concerned with the form of language use relation to meaning Bhatia 1993. Genre-based Approach is similar to an approach to teaching English. 3 Johns 2002, 01, said, “Genre as a means for analyzing text has become a means for better pragmatic and linguistic understanding of texts”. In general, genre is used to describe the range of process such as explaining, instructing, recounting, describing, arguing, and narrating used to produce texts that reflect the purpose and intended audience. Genre-based approach has two cycles: oral cycle and written cycle. Oral cycle focuses on developing the ability to use oral language such as for speaking and listening skill. Whereas in written cycle is developing the ability to use written language, the learner has to try to write an English text which is similar as the text that has been read. Genre-based Approach has four stages. Firstly, Building Knowledge of the field BKOF, where teachers and students build cultural context, share experience, discuss vocabulary, grammatical pattern and so on. All these are geared around the type of spoken texts and topics they are going to dial with at the second stage, Secondly, Modeling of text MOT where students listen to statements of short functional text, conversation and monologue that is geared around a certain communicative purpose. Thirdly, Joint Construction of Text, JCOT at this stage they try to develop the texts with their peers and with the help from the teachers. The students need to demonstrate their English ability and show their confidence in English. The last, Independent Construction of Text, ICOT at this stage, students are expected to do the task individually or carry their monologues that are aimed at giving directions or showing ways to do things such as how to operate computer, how to use mixer, and so on. 4 As the result of the observation at MAN 1 Surakarta, many teachers teach their students passively. They just ask their students to open exercise book, explain the text by sitting on the chair, read the task then do the exercise without using teaching media. The writer knows that there are many ways in teaching learning process to make students enjoy an interesting method in studying English as foreign language. So, in this case the students become disinterested in studying English. The students become passive in English learning process and they are not able to speak, understand English text, and write in English, therefore, the English teaching learning process is not effective. A teacher is expected to respond the passivity of the student so that they can be active learner. There are many causes of the problems in teaching learning process in MAN 1 Surakarta especially in the second grade. The first, the students have limited vocabulary. The second, the teachers do not write the difficult word when they explain the text. The third, the teacher cannot organize the class well because most of the students do not pay attention when the teacher explains the material. The fourth, the students have less motivation in English learning. The difficulty is also faced by the students as they do not realize that English is important for them. So, the teacher has to find a new method to teach English in order to make students active in studying English. The students tend to study and to add vocabulary especially English included it as important thing. So, the teacher uses Genre-based Approach in teaching Learning process. The purpose of the implementation of Genre-based Approach in teaching English at MAN 1 Surakarta in the curriculum 2006 is to make the students interested in the material, to make the students motivated and they could 5 get new ideas about the material. Moreover, to give more chances for students to speak actively, understood in English text, interested to write in English, and participate in teaching materials. These all can be facilitated by conducting Genre-based Approach since it provides the opportunities to perform English in daily life context. The reality or the phenomena of the teaching learning process in second years is very simple. As the result of observation that most the teachers enter to the class, ask the students to pray, greet them, go on to study about the material, do the exercise, and close the section. The teachers are stick to the material or instructions in the supplementary books. By knowing the teaching learning process in the second years is not interesting, it makes the students passive in learning as the effect of teaching style. Moreover this could make the students lazy. Realizing the phenomena above, the writer is interested in knowing more deeply about the teaching learning process of English using Genre-based Approach in MAN 1 Surakarta. Based on the document score of the students, the teaching learning process at MAN 1 Surakarta is fail because the teachers have not implemented the system of genre-based Approach. They prefer to use the supplementary book as the hand out to teach in the classroom. They never use the genre-based approach in teaching English. Genre based Approach is very important in teaching English material. Teacher can encourage their students’ motivation not only through the material they give but also through their teaching method in the classroom. As facilitator, teachers have to have efforts creating the 6 interesting teaching method to make students interested especially using Genre- based Approach. By using Genre-based Approach teacher can teach students many skills, strategies and media used for teaching English material successfully. Students also have opportunities to apply these skills and strategies in real situation. Thus, most teachers teach both the curriculum and the systems in contrast These reasons as stated above make the researcher interested to find the answer of the problem by conducting the research under the title THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GENRE_BASED APPROACH FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH AT MAN SURAKARTA.

B. The Research Problem